Shadows Comfort
by vernajast
Summary: Naruto's light dims and fades, and Sasuke makes his own promise of a lifetime. Only Kakashi can understand what the loss of someone like Naruto does to a person. Hachidaime Sasuke, KakaSasu, past unrequited SasuNaru, implied past YonKaka.


_warnings: character death, angsty fluff-canon-like AU/assumptions regarding manga, takes place sometime after current manga_

_KakaSasu with past/unrequited SasuNaru and YonKaka._

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**Shadows Comfort  
****by vernajast**

_A Hachidaime (8th) Hokage Uchiha Sasuke fic_  
_(kaka/sasu; unrequited past naru/sasu, yon/kaka)_

**The Sun was born, so it shall die, 'til only shadows comfort me.**  
**I know in darkness I will find you giving up inside like me. (vnv nation)**

_**All things die.**_

Uchiha Sasuke learns it too well when he is barely three years out of diapers and has only just perfected the art of his family's fire jutsu.

He is reminded of this simple truth years later when Itachi falls to the ground and doesn't move again, at all.

It is a different lesson altogether when more time passes to find the light in Uzumaki Naruto's ocean blue eyes flickering and fading right before Sasuke's (_not that he'd been looking at Sasuke, not that bastard, Naruto's last thoughts were of his unfulfilled dreams and how he'd never be Hokage and those blue eyes __**did not**__ slide up of their own accord to meet wide black ones, and they most certainly __**did not**__ speak untold "I love yous" to the former-teammate-missing-nin-best-friend_).

_I'm sorry._ Sasuke crawls toward Naruto, his body, and wraps an arm around the blond's waist. Trembling fingers grip blood-damp orange fabric, and he just stares at those dull eyes, so empty and so wrong, until he mercifully blacks out.

By the time he awakens, most of the poison has worked its way through his system, and he can at least sit up without feeling nauseous. With slow, controlled movements, he stands on shaking legs and hefts Naruto's body up off the ground, pressing a kiss to his sweat and dirt streaked forehead. He carefully avoids looking at the enemy, the parts that remain, and even more carefully doesn't allow himself to question why Naruto would use a jutsu he knew would destroy him, too.

Not careful enough, apparently, with Naruto's voice in his head. _Get back, teme! I'm gonna show you the __**new me**__!_

Thin, delicate Uchiha lips form a pale line, and he starts walking. They are on the border of Fire Country (_**they**__, he and Naruto_); it won't take long to reach their destination, and Sasuke finds he doesn't care what happens once they've arrived. He knows it could mean his death and, maybe, welcomes it.

At least, that's what he believes until he sees the walls of the newly rebuilt village.

Tsunade alights on the road before him three seconds after he enters the huge gates. She doesn't look at him yet, gathering her strength and drawing out the moment. It is a delicate affair, the return of a missing nin who also happens to be the most precious person of her most precious person, and she's glad Naruto isn't back yet if she's going to have to turn Sasuke away.

But then she does look. And look. And her heart breaks all over again.

And strong restraining arms hook around her shoulders and hold back the Fifth Hokage who is ready to murder her teammate's apprentice on the spot. Green eyes well with tears, and Sakura looks away, pink hair shielding her face. Only a single soft gray eye gazes down at the Hokage, looking as sad as she feels.

"Sasuke." Kakashi's voice is muffled behind his mask and the Hokage's hair and sorrow. His discerning eye acutely focuses on the turquoise gem hanging from Sasuke's neck, and he gives a gentle order to his subordinate: "Do what you need to do." He's always prided himself on seeing underneath the underneath (_no, not __**pride**__, the 'Hatake' clan lost the capacity for it years ago, replaced it with __**stubbornness**__ and __**aloofness**__ and __**devotion to duty**_), and he's always known Sasuke would never be able to kill Naruto (_not again_).

Sasuke nods at his former teacher and continues through the village, siphoning chakra into his legs to keep them moving.

When he stops and slides down to his knees, the destination surprises a few of the spectators who have gathered, but not Kakashi, and he watches Sasuke petting the blond's cheek, smoothing out his hair (_an exercise in futility, but he knows that better than anyone_).

It is obvious the Uchiha cares for...loves Naruto, a parody of his own love for the blond boy's father, and it's nearly too painful thinking of how history repeats itself, again, always, and how in the end Sasuke and Kakashi are on their own because they are too strong, too good, and have survived too long. Everyone dies on them **(_for them_, they were both invincible and sunny and beautiful, and both died and left them alone).**

"What happened?"

The Uchiha ignores him, continues touching and holding the dull thing that is not Naruto, now, just another body, just another death added to the universal toll that Kakashi has seen growing in his head ever since he was six and took his first life. His eyes burn at the tenderness of those sliding fingers, more poignant than the body itself, more real now, and remembers a night–so long ago–when he went through the same motions.

They are huddled on the stone monument, atop the Fourth's head carved into the rocks of the mountainside, and this isn't by chance. Anyone who might think so doesn't know Sasuke, at all.

The moment Orochimaru's consciousness fused with his own, tried to take over his body (_mine, mine, and stay the hell out_), Sasuke has always known what Orochimaru knew. He has always wondered how a father could do that to his son (_he has forgotten his own father's face_).

Kakashi is the only one standing close enough to hear the boy's whispered words, and only the last: "...in your place."

"Sasuke...you..."

The heir to the Uchiha clan, who no longer cares about his own lofty goals or revenge, looks up at his teacher. "I didn't."

It is ten years later, suddenly, and time has passed too quickly, not fast enough. He sits in a quiet room, promise fulfilled. Nearly silent except for the scratch of a quill on parchment, he writes a letter to the daimyo requesting a meeting. The man is infuriating and blond (_and why does he have to be_).

Black eyes flick up to two photographs situated on the desktop. Each bears the smiling face of another infuriating blond (_Minato, Naruto_), each with a stoic counterpart (_and Sasuke wonders when he started seeing his younger self as __**stoic**__ and when Kakashi learned to smile_).

The Eighth Hokage tosses the finished letter onto the stack of papers to be handled by his assistant in the morning. He's been in office for six months, and has yet to figure out why Tsunade never seemed to finish any paperwork.

The clouds shift, and a shaft of (_golden blond_) sunlight falls across his desk, and it suddenly seems less important. Sasuke leans back in his chair and stretches, smiling, whispering faintly, "Thank you."

He isn't startled by the quiet chuckle at the window; Kakashi has been there for nearly ten minutes.

"Are you going to sit out there all evening? I'm finished..."

"Hungry?" The Copy-nin leans his head and shoulders in through the window and grins behind his mask. Sasuke knows the face hidden by the cloth, each curve and dip and smile and frown, and that knowledge has granted him the ability to read those nuanced expressions as if there is no mask at all.

"You're late, Kakashi." They both sigh at the ritual, and Sasuke's eyes slide over Naruto's picture one last time before he takes his lover's arm. "Ramen tonight?"

A nod (_because Kakashi has those days, too, when he can't help but see __**yellow**__ and __**blue**__ everywhere, and smell the sweet scent of jasmine when there's nothing but the wind and the sun_).

The pair disappears before more thought can be given to _why_. They no longer need to ask.

They eat and return to the quiet darkness of home, to their bed, and in the aftermath of their lovemaking, when Sasuke's pale skin is bruised and marked with Kakashi's hand on his hips and his mouth on his throat, they are the only two who can understand what was lost. And what was gained.

They live for the sake of their village (_Minato and Naruto's village_), for one another and that understanding, for the genuine love between them. And in the too dark and too quiet of their apartment (_and the unspoken reasons why it has to be_), Kakashi and Sasuke think maybe this is happiness.

(_Neither is willing to let go, not this time. There will be no sacrifice for power/duty/honor/shame/fear._

_**And they would be so proud of you both**__**.**)_

[ .end ]


End file.
